Hungarians march again in protest against internet tax plan

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Second mass rally part of growing discontent with Orbán government, which many accuse of creeping authoritarianism


Tens of thousand of Hungarians march in Budapest during an anti-government rally against plans for an internet tax.

The rally, the second in three days over the scheme, is also seen as a sign of growing discontent among mostly younger Hungarians over the prime minister, Viktor Orbán’s policies that critics say are centralising power.

In April, Orbán’s governing party, Fidesz, won its second consecutive two-thirds majority and he began his third four-year term as prime minister. Since 2010 the EU has expressed concerns over what it sees as Hungary’s failure to respect European democratic standards, while Washington and others have criticised new laws regulating everything from the media to churches. The Orbán government has also been reproached for intimidating independent civic groups, including corruption watchdogs and minority advocates, and for its efforts to deepen ties with Russia.

On Tuesday night, protesters outside the economy ministry in Budapest called on Orbán to withdraw the plan to force internet service providers to pay 700 forints (£1.80) per individual subscriber a month and 5,000 forints per business subscriber. There are concerns that the tax will not be absorbed by the internet providers, as the government claims.

Protesters vowed to continue the rallies – which have also been held in several other cities in Hungary and at some Hungarian embassies in EU countries – until the government withdraws the tax plan.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/29/hungarians-protest-internet-tax-plan-orban

On a related note:

Budapest autumn: hollowing out democracy on the edge of Europe
Rightwing prime minister Viktor Orbán is using his huge electoral majority to rewrite the rules, and not just for Hungary

For the liberal middle classes of Budapest, the latest outrage in Orbán’s Hungary is the world’s first internet tax, a gigabyte levy denounced at home and abroad as an assault on free speech while shoring up the budget.

On Tuesday tens of thousands of protesters commanded bridges over the Danube in central Budapest in the biggest challenge to the prime minister since he returned to power in 2010. The demonstrators likened Orbán to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and flew the EU flag, which Orban regularly denounces.

Bernadett Szél, MP and co-leader of a small Green liberal party, cites the events in Kishantos and Budapest as a prime example of the “endless cynicism” of the prime minister and his party, Fidesz, whose actions and policies set him apart in the European Union, and are setting off alarm bells in Brussels and Washington. “Kishantos is a symbol of what Orbán is doing. It’s pure power and pure destruction. Fidesz is the state. The party is the state. We don’t know how to end that.”



The number one item on Orbán’s destroy list appears to be the western democratic model. In an infamous speech to supporters in Romania in July, he declared the western model dead and cited the authoritarian regimes of Russia, China, Turkey and Singapore as the templates to follow. “We are parting ways with western European dogmas, making ourselves independent from them,” he declared. “We have to abandon liberal methods and principles of organising a society. The new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/29/budapest-viktor-orban-democracy-edge-hungary

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1. Success against Hungary's right wing: Orban retreats from internet tax plan after protests

Hungary will not introduce an internet tax, PM Viktor Orban told Hungarian radio Friday, reports Bloomberg. Implementation of the plan had become "impossible" after tens of thousands of Hungarians protested against it, Orban said. Instead, there will be a “national consultation” on the matter in 2015.

http://euobserver.com/tickers/126331